THE LANGSTON PROJECT

It sure is no surprise to hear contemporary improvising musicians taking over Langston Hughes' texts, for if there ever was a "jazz poetry", he definitely was one of its main forerunners. What's more uncommon, but even more meaningful, is the "Langston Project" members' experience, between European improvised music and Soul, Punk-Rock and Disco. They play a patchwork of sounds that looks like what Langston Hughes honoured in his collaborations and poetry, including lieder, hymns, blues and that "very modern jazz burning the air eerie like a neon swamp-fire cooled by dry ice". And they put them to free form music in return.